After months of saying his hands were tied until Major League Baseball officials decide whether to allow the Oakland A's to move to the South Bay, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed on Thursday said he will ask the City Council to put a ballpark measure on the November ballot even without MLB's blessing.

The proposal — along with Reed's suggestions for another measure that could roll back pay for police and firefighters — shook up what had been a sedate month in San Jose, where City Council members have been on their traditional July recess.

And the move stunned the San Francisco Giants, who like A's owner Lew Wolff have been waiting for a special committee appointed 16 months ago by baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to study the A's options.

Reed was in the Sierra Nevada celebrating his wedding anniversary Thursday and unavailable for comment. But his spokeswoman, Michelle McGurk, called a public vote "an important first step in the process of bringing the Athletics to San Jose."

The Giants remain adamantly opposed to an A's move, which they say would violate their lucrative territorial rights to Santa Clara County. "We think it's inappropriate for the mayor to proceed when Major League Baseball hasn't had its full chance to deliberate and do a thorough analysis," said Staci Slaughter, the team's senior vice-president of communications.

Reed's timing is crucial: If the council is to put the measure on the ballot, it must do so by its Aug. 3 meeting.

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MLB wants firm plan

But even as Reed and other city leaders have fretted that time was growing short for MLB to revoke the Giants' territorial rights, one highly placed baseball source told the Mercury News the league was unlikely to wade into the issue without ironclad assurances the plan could go forward.

"Part of the problem is, Lew doesn't have San Jose sewn up. It's not like there's a stadium ready to be built," said this person, who refused to be identified because he isn't authorized to speak for the league.

"If there was an approval, that could make a difference. It's hard to say, 'OK, Lew, you can have it,' and then have them go through the voting process and end up losing."

As recently as last week, Reed had said it would be up to Wolff whether the city should put a stadium measure on the ballot absent baseball's approval. On Thursday, Wolff praised the mayor's proposal.

"This is another element that would make the process more viable, just like acquiring the land and finishing the" supplemental environmental impact report, he said. "The more unknowns that can be out of the way, the better."

Corey Busch, a member of Selig's special committee, declined to comment on news of the ballot measure.

But Councilman Sam Liccardo, who has cosigned the memo that will be reviewed next week by the council's agenda-setting Rules Committee, said it's now or never.

"We have an extraordinary opportunity to leverage half a billion dollars of private investment that will create hundreds of jobs," he said. "So we're getting our ducks in a row, and we expect that by our doing so, Major League Baseball will come along."

The ballot measure, called the San Jose Downtown Ballpark and Jobs Measure, will be paid for by Wolff and Pro Baseball for San Jose, a grass-roots group.

"This will not cost the city or taxpayers one dime to put on the ballot," said Pro Baseball for San Jose co-chairman Michael Mulcahy, who said his group is committed to raising $350,000 to $400,000 to put the measure before voters.

Other heavy hitters also plan to rally support for the ballot campaign, including Carl Guardino, chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

"This election will prove that support is overwhelming here in San Jose for major league baseball," said Guardino.

Organized opposition

While Wolff has agreed to pay for the $461 million ballpark and its maintenance, the city is proposing to let the team use 14 acres of land it owns or is trying to buy near the Diridon Train Station. The city also would pay millions more for infrastructure around the ballpark; use of public funds for a baseball stadium would require a public vote under existing city law.

Two groups — Stand for San Jose, backed by the Giants' minor league affiliate, and Better Sense San Jose, which is concerned about the park's impact on traffic and parking, among other stadium-related issues — have vowed to fight any effort to spend city money on the stadium.

Other ballot measures

Gaining public support for a ballpark isn't Reed's only hurdle this fall: Four other proposed ballot measures also will be considered at the Rules Committee meeting, including ones that would increase the city's sales tax a quarter-cent; tax the sale of medicinal marijuana; and give the council the flexibility to set pension benefits for new employees.

But besides baseball, Reed is particularly focused on the issue of binding arbitration in contract disputes with police and firefighters.

City voters in 1980 approved arbitration for public safety workers, letting an outside judge decide whether the city or union position prevails. Reed has argued the process, though invoked only a few times, has allowed costs for officers and firefighters to far outpace city revenues. Those costs have nearly doubled in the past decade, helping drive nine straight years of deficits.

Police and firefighters have said they would vigorously fight any attempt to repeal binding arbitration. They see it as crucial to ensuring fairness in negotiations, noting that they're legally barred from striking. And they have argued that the sour economy and poor spending priorities, not arbitration, are really to blame for the city's chronic shortfalls.

A memo detailing Reed's arbitration proposal, due out today, will call for limiting binding arbitration rather than repealing it outright, as some citizen groups have urged. Reed hasn't necessarily embraced the other measures under consideration, however. McGurk said he would probably support letting voters have a say on a medical marijuana tax, but she said he "has serious concerns about the viability of a sales tax measure."